


new shapes, old friends

by joongz



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: A little bit of sci-fi, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-War, Strangers to Lovers, listen it's very sad but also soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-01-30
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,503
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22481890
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joongz/pseuds/joongz
Summary: Loneliness took a new shape when San met Wooyoung.
Relationships: Choi San/Jung Wooyoung
Comments: 10
Kudos: 86





	new shapes, old friends

**Author's Note:**

> another thing i wrote on a whim, was feeling a bit sad so here we go. i hope you enjoy it ^^
> 
> i recommend listening to _The Wa_ r by SYML, _Carry You_ by Ruelle & Fleurie, and _Love Has No Limits_ by Fleurie while reading this!!

When the lights in the sky had vanished and an era of peace had settled over the land, many had given love another chance. Almost like an instinct, reaching out to those around them for support and just pure love, but throughout the war San had befriended loneliness. 

It had visited him on the first night the lights had appeared in the sky, taking his family with them, and he had ended up utterly alone, trying to find any living soul near him. After that, it had visited him over and over again, always leaving an empty shape next to him where once someone had stood. At some point, San had just given up in reshaping that already existing friend and had dealt with it, turning loneliness into a friend. His closest and oldest friend. 

It was one year after the war and San was trying to find his place in the world after the horrors and scars it had left on him. He worked in a little shop that sold scraps of metal and other materials from all the weapons forged in times of war that now had lost their meaning.

The most infuriating part of the job wasn’t the constant reminder San got whenever his hand passed over one of these scraps, reminding him of a time he had held a gun to defend himself, or had been trapped underneath a bigger machinery, his lungs nearly giving out due to the weight. His death so near, but by luck he had escaped, not giving his companion the shape of loneliness, instead it had always been the other way around. Death had spared San too many times. 

No. What was more infuriating was San’s coworker, Yunho. 

He was a tall man, a foreigner of the land and so unaware of the horrors that had occurred. Of course he had heard of them, probably followed them through the screens, but he hadn’t been a part of it. Their first interaction had been a bitter reminder of that.

“Whoah, that’s a cool arm you’ve got there!” Yunho had exclaimed after being introduced to San by their boss, Seonghwa.

San had looked down at his metal arm, moving his fingers slowly as if he only then had remembered that his arm was different. He had looked up at Yunho, utterly speechless at the insensitivity. 

Seonghwa had swooped in, placing a warm hand on San’s shoulder to soothe him. “San is a war veteran,” he had said pointedly. Yunho had gasped, quietly, and guilt had colored his face. 

“I’m sorry, I forgot.”

San would ( _could_ ) never forget, he knew as much. He had envied and hated Yunho a bit then.

“Whatever,” San had muttered, returning to his work.

Despite that horrendous first interaction, Yunho tried, almost to the point where it got annoying, to befriend San. He brought little gifts for him, he tried to share his food with him, he even, on one memorable day, had brought a friend with him to work, claiming that he wouldn’t bother them, just so that he could act as a medium in between San and Yunho.

That was how San had met Wooyoung.

Just as much as Yunho—and now Wooyoung—tried to befriend him, San pushed them away with the same fervent effort. He knew loneliness, he wouldn’t give in and allow that shape to be filled with a different form. He knew better than that.

The first time San wavered was in the middle of winter, when a snowstorm was unfolding on the streets and he felt a little bit of _Schadenfreude_ at seeing all the people hurrying about while he was inside the store, the portable stove right next to him. 

The door of the shop opened and in came Wooyoung, wearing a thick wool jacket, its hood pulled over his black hair. His teeth were chattering and he smiled abashedly at San, rubbing his hands together.

“Yunho isn’t here,” San said, irritated.

“Oh, I’m not here for him,” Wooyoung replied. He crossed the small distance, putting his hands on the stove, letting out a pleased sigh. “This is the shit.”

San hummed, noncommittally, and returned to stare stoically at the door of the shop like he was required to do in case a customer came in. He had absolved all of his other tasks already so this was all he could do until his shift ended.

“Don’t you think snow has something so nostalgic and beautiful? It’s as if it traps you into a dream. A wonderful and quiet dream,” Wooyoung rambled, ignoring the fact that San was trying to ignore him. “Do you ever have those kinds of dreams? Wonderful and quiet? Where you wake up with a rested soul and a clear head? I love those!”

“No,” San answered despite himself.

“Oh.” Wooyoung glanced at him, his eyes falling onto San’s metallic arm. “Well, one day you might. I think the promise for that makes it worth carrying on.”

“There is no promise for that.”

Wooyoung laughed, but it wasn’t funny. At least San didn’t think so. He looked down at Wooyoung, squinting his eyes. 

“Then I’ll promise you right here that one day you’ll wake up with a dream like that stuck in your mind.”

“Don’t make promises you can’t hold,” San told him, irritated.

Wooyoung removed his left hand from the stove, holding out his pinky finger. San stared at it for a couple of seconds before he looked at Wooyoung, rising a single eyebrow. Wooyoung didn’t say anything, just lifted his pinky finger even more as a smile started to spread out on his face.

San sighed but he complied, linking his metallic finger with the other’s normal one.

“There, pinky promise,” Wooyoung said. San was about to return to his fascinating task, but the serious look in Wooyoung’s face had him pinned. It was staggering how genuine he looked. 

San wondered what it would be like to have Wooyoung as a friend.

He shook his head, reminding himself of the pain and losses, and that he already had a friend. He removed his metallic arm quickly, letting it rest on the counter, balling it into a fist. A part of him wished he would have used his non metallic hand so that he could at least feel the phantom of Wooyoung’s pinky finger lingering. He hadn’t felt another person’s physical touch in a long time—aside from Seonghwa’s few shoulder squeezes and Yunho’s fist bumps.

The second time San wavered, they weren’t even in the shop. He was outside, on the streets, getting some food, when he ran into a person, knocking them over. He reached out his arms to grab the person before they completely fell down. 

“I am so sorry,” he apologized quickly, averting his eyes so he could carry on on his way to get home.

“San?” Wooyoung asked in wonderment. “What a coincidence!” he exclaimed, kneeling down to grab the papers he had dropped. He handed one of them to San. Printed on it was a picture of a very ugly cat, its left ear had a cut that didn’t seem to have healed properly and one of its paws was missing. San stared angrily at the cat.

“What is this?” he asked, looking at Wooyoung.

“My friend’s cat. She went missing two days ago,” he said sadly. “If you find her, please contact me. This is very important!”

“It’s just a cat.”

Wooyoung scoffed, offended and hurt. “She’s more than that. She kept us company during the—” He staggered, swallowing. “She kept us company during the war. My friend finds company in her. She is very important to him,” he insisted. 

“Okay.”

“Okay?” Wooyoung echoed, his previous hurt expression vanishing as a tentative smile bloomed. “Great! Her name is Candle.”

San squinted his eyes. “Candle,” he repeated.

“She once knocked over a candle, nearly burning our flat down. My friend decided it was a worthy anecdote to name her after,” Wooyoung explained, and of course he was friends with someone who’d name their cat Candle.

“I’ll uh, I’ll tell you if I see her,” San said then, not liking the awkwardness that was settling into him. He didn’t do awkward; so why was he…? 

“Awesome! I’ll tell my friend, it’ll make him really happy to have someone as great as you looking for her!” Wooyoung blushed, laughing breathily, and scratched the back of his neck. “Well then, I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah,” San breathed, suddenly wishing their conversation wouldn’t end so soon, but Wooyoung was already on his way, handing random by passers posters of Candle. 

San stood on the sidewalk until he no longer could see Wooyoung.

Once he was in his small flat, he went through all of his tasks: washing his laundry, cooking himself dinner, scrubbing the pots and plates after eating, putting on a film on the screens, crawling into his bed with all the weight of the world on his shoulders… But that night he didn’t feel like he always did. There was something missing.

In the darkness of his bedroom, he reached out his hand to find loneliness, his friend, but instead he just found loneliness, wishing someone was there with him.

The next day, San walked down the road he always took to reach Seonghwa’s shop and to his surprise someone called for him. Not a human, but a cat meowing for his attention. He glanced left and right, but this early in the day there was no one on the streets yet. He followed the calling of the cat, finding Candle hiding in an alley, behind some trash cans. She stared up at him with huge attentive eyes.

He stilled, just looking down at her, a bit clueless about what he was meant to do. Candle took the initiative, stumbling over to him, her missing paw slowed the process down. She rubbed her body against his leg.

San crouched down and picked her up easily, she barely weighted anything.

“Candle,” he said. She meowed, blinking at him as she began purring. “I’m going to take you with me. Then I’ll call Wooyoung, alright?” 

She didn’t answer—of course she didn’t, she was a cat—but San had a feeling she understood him perfectly.

Seonghwa was completely enamored with her, petting her head lovingly. He even rushed to the closest grocery shop to buy a can of cat food for her to eat. Candle was treated like a queen.

When midday arrived, Wooyoung came rushing through the shop’s door, a delighted and relieved laugh escaping him as he spotted his friend’s cat sitting on a stool, cleaning her fur. San thought he would run up to her and make sure she was okay, but instead Wooyoung decidedly marched over to him. Before San could even protest he had an armful of Wooyoung, all soft and delicate, smelling of fresh air and coffee. San didn’t get a chance to hug back, but that was the third time his heart wavered. 

He didn’t even notice it happening for he was too preoccupied with the sensation of having another body so close to him, so solid and reassuring and all that he yearned for ever since the war had come and gone—maybe even before that. 

He nearly cried when Wooyoung stepped away.

“Thank you for finding her, my friend will be very happy,” Wooyoung assured him before he walked over to Candle.

From that day on, San dreamt of someone holding him close. They weren’t wonderful and quiet dreams, they were loud and painful. The loneliness grew after them, nearly taking over his entire flat. Some corners, like the radio or the screen remained intact of his old friend. And this would be just the beginning of San’s evolving relationship with loneliness.

_Something_ started to spread. It started from his hand—his non metallic hand—and travelled up his arm until it reached his shoulder, moving to his heart, which was the fatal part. From his heart, it didn’t take long to consume his whole body.

It was half a year since San had met Wooyoung and at this point he didn’t even try to stop whatever agenda Wooyoung carried with him. He just let it happen, the same went for Yunho. San had found to be quite powerless against their constant excited chatter and bright (infectious) eyes. 

About five minutes ago, Wooyoung had entered Seonghwa’s shop, like he made tradition to do, without a care in the world, holding two small pieces of paper in his hand. He grabbed San’s hand without thinking too much about it, delicately (like he always treated San) pushing one of the pieces inside San’s palm. 

He smiled excitedly. “I’m officially inviting you to my annual—starting this year—friend hang out where I spoil all of you!” Before San could even react, Wooyoung was on his chirpy way over to Seonghwa to repeat the same words. “I’ll be expecting both of you,” he said with a meaningful glance at San. “Remember, _this_ weekend.”

Five minutes later and San still couldn’t move. 

Wooyoung had called him his _friend_. When had San allowed for that to happen? He had tried so hard keeping Wooyoung—and Yunho and Seonghwa—at a distance, for good reason too. Any person by his side had always been replaced by loneliness because it was strong, and it was only friend that had been around long enough to know San. Was it possible that the shape had changed without his knowledge?

“What’s got you so shocked?” Yunho wondered as he walked past San, holding a box of newly acquired scraps. He saw the invitation in San’s hand and let out a knowing, “ _Ah_.” What did he know?

San reached out his hand to stop Yunho. “What…” he began, but failed to form a coherent question. He cleared his throat, trying anew. Yunho was staring at him patiently. “Does Wooyoung consider me his friend?”

Yunho kept staring at him, now blankly. He lowered the box onto the floor. “Yes. He does.” San nearly choked on the wave of emotions that ambushed him. There was no stopping once it reached his heart. There was no stopping; there was no stopping it anymore. “So do I, by the way. And I’m pretty sure Seonghwa too.”

“No…” San muttered, utterly terrified. Even there, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the shop, he could feel the loneliness grow. “No, that can’t be. I-I…”

Yunho smiled sadly. He let out a sigh. In his eyes there was hidden a very understanding and sympathetic look. He put his hand over San’s, in which he was still holding Wooyoung’s invitation. “It’s okay.”

But it wasn’t okay, not at all. 

When San was lying in his small bed that night, nothing was _okay_. His old friend was gone. He felt so much despair and hurt, and he felt so lonely. In his restless dream he walked alone, searching for someone. It hunted him until he woke up to the sound of his alarm.

The weekend approached like a thunderstorm on the horizon, inevitable and terrifying. San had told himself over and over again that he wouldn’t go, but on the day of Wooyoung’s friend hang out he stood exactly by the address written on the invitation, his finger hovering over the door bell.

“Just get it over with,” he muttered to himself and pressed it, swallowing thickly as he threw the path of his—what he had believed fixed—fate into the wind. 

Wooyoung had taken the control out of San’s life.

When he crossed the door of Wooyoung’s flat, he wasn’t sure what he had expected, but certainly not a fairly clean and organized flat with painted white walls and modern looking furniture. Wooyoung led him to the living room where Seonghwa and Yunho already sat in, each with a drink, speaking to a stranger San had never met before.

“This is my friend and roommate, Hongjoong. Candle is his cat,” Wooyoung revealed, smiling excitedly, as if he wanted to hear San’s thoughts on this.

San nodded his head at Hongjoong, but his entire world crumbled the moment he saw the man’s face. His irises were gray, his pupils nearly white. A patch of shimmering skin covered half of Hongjoong’s face.

San staggered back, his eyes wide with horror. Wooyoung grabbed his wrist to prevent him from falling.

“It’s fine!” he said loudly. “Hongjoong is—He isn’t dangerous.”

Hongjoong’s smile was restrained as he nodded in welcome.

“It’s nice to meet you, San. I’ve heard a great deal about you.” He stood up from the couch. “I wanted to thank you for finding Candle, it means a lot.” From somewhere the cat meowed after hearing her name. Hongjoong smiled warmly.

“How are you—” San tried to find his words.

“Somehow it never spread,” Hongjoong explained, understanding what San was trying to ask. “I survived the lights. They never came back for me.”

“See, I told you, he’s not dangerous.”

San glanced at Yunho and Seonghwa, who were completely okay with Hongjoong’s presence, and so San thought that maybe he’d be okay too. 

He calmed down, slowly, and moved to shake Hongjoong’s hand politely. Hongjoong’s eyes fell onto his metallic arm, his lips parting, but he did not comment on it, averting his gaze quickly. San was used to it by now.

“Now that everyone is here, let’s begin this party. I have bought so many drinks and snacks, and even cooked you all personalized meals… It’s going to be awesome!”

“He spent two days preparing this,” Hongjoong whispered, amused.

Surrounded by these people San forgot all about his old friend, it was as if loneliness had never existed in his life.

Two hours later, Yunho and Seonghwa were sitting on the couch, their arms over each other’s shoulders as they whispered drunkenly, giggling in delight. Hongjoong laid on the couch, Candle sitting on his chest, purring loudly as she had her eyes closed. She looked completely content. Maybe she was having a wonderful and quiet dream, San reasoned.

Wooyoung was alone in the kitchen, putting away the many aluminum cans, but he caught San staring at Hongjoong.

“He gets tired quickly,” he explained. San walked over to Wooyoung so he could help him—there was no other reason. “He’s a subject in a government research program, it can get quite tiring on some days, but the price is well, all of this.” He gestured at their nice flat. 

San hummed noncommittally.

“Thank you for coming, San. It means a lot,” Wooyoung said very quietly then. “I know I can be pushy, especially when it comes to making friends. Sometimes I forget that other people don’t want me. I hope I haven’t pushed you too much.”

San stilled. He could tell him now what he had thought for so long. That he didn’t appreciate Wooyoung’s presence or the constant attempts of getting closer to San, but he found himself not finding those thoughts anymore. Maybe it was his drunken mind, so weak that it was forgetting the loneliness that had spread out into every corner of his flat.

“No,” San said.

“No?” Wooyoung echoed. “No, what?”

“You haven’t pushed me too much.”

“Oh, okay,” Wooyoung breathed. He looked small, but there was a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “That’s good then. I really like hanging out with you, you know?”

“I…” The words got stuck in his throat. Being honest, no matter how big or small the price, was always hard. Being emotionally vulnerable had become hard for San with the years as he hadn’t really practiced it and his immediate reaction was to lie, but he couldn’t do that to Wooyoung. “I like hanging out with you too,” he confessed.

When San got home that night, there were two things that overwhelmed him: the first one, was the loneliness that came crashing onto him the moment he slipped under the covers of his bed, his old friend ripped out all the memories of his new friends and replaced them with everything he had lost over the years, with all the empty shapes next to him. The second thing that his mind was grasping onto, much stronger than the loneliness, was Wooyoung’s smile.

When San had knocked on the door of Wooyoung and Hongjoong’s apartment, the former had opened the door, smiling so happily about San’s presence. And all the other smiles of that night, they were all with San as he slowly and agonizingly fell asleep. He tried to hold onto them, reminding himself of them because they were true. Possibly truer than his old friend.

San had lost count of how many times he had already wavered. There was no point anymore for everything was changing and shifting. There was a very important process and lesson he was learning. One that was painful and left him awake for hours at nighttime, but it was so freeing and healing too. 

He was learning to let go of his old friend. He was saying goodbye to the permanent loneliness around him.

“Good morning, Yunho,” he said one day as he entered the shop.

Yunho, who was going through a box of screws, jerked so badly that he dropped the box on the floor. Even Seonghwa, who was in his office, the door open as he worked on paper work, looked up in astonishment.

Yunho started crying quietly.

“G-Good morning, San,” he mumbled back. “Good morning,” he repeated, more to himself now.

San stared at him in confusion until he realized that he had never greeted him. He had never known how important something like this—as simple as acknowledging the people around him—could actually be. 

He looked up, preventing himself from crying as well, and found Seonghwa’s eyes on him. 

“Good morning, Seonghwa,” he said tentatively, taking in the words.

Seonghwa smiled, proudly and a bit sadly. Mostly just lovingly.

“Good morning, San.”

After that he said it every day.

Then the day arrived that he wholly acknowledged Wooyoung’s presence, without Wooyoung even being present. He was in the grocery shop getting himself food when he saw the snacks Wooyoung adored so much—the little chocolate bears—and without thinking too much about it, he grabbed two packs of them. One for himself and one for Wooyoung.

He waited the entire next day in the shop for Wooyoung’s arrival. Some time around noon, the shorter finally walked through the door of the store, already complaining about his classes, when San grabbed the chocolate bears from beneath the counter, waiting anxiously for Wooyoung to walk up to him.

“Hey, San,” he greeted him, removing his jacket. “How have you—?”

“I brought you something,” San interrupted him, not being able to contain himself anymore. He handed the bears out for Wooyoung to take.

Seonghwa stood close by, eagerly watching the exchange while he pretended to be checking some titanium scraps they had gotten delivered about twenty minutes ago.

Wooyoung smiled magnificently as he took the chocolate bears. “Thank you. I was actually craving some.” He ripped the packaged open, taking out two bears and handing one to San. “Have you tried them? They’re really good.”

San shook his head, not wanting to ruin the illusion. He had spent the past day eating the entire pack of chocolate bears after his dinner, wanting to understand Wooyoung. Wanting to have a part of Wooyoung with him. His old friend—no, _loneliness_ was barely around these days.

San took a bite, pretending to be surprised by the taste. “They’re good, yeah.”

The smile Wooyoung gave him nearly brought him to tears.

“Give me one too,” Seonghwa whined, no longer pretending to not exist.

It was hard to understand that he had masked all of his pain—the fear of going through the same things again and again—with the illusion of finding a friend in loneliness. He had allowed for that old friend to spread over his life like a protective blanket, except that it hadn’t protected him at all. It had kept San isolated and miserable. 

His new friends made him realize that now. He kicked that old friend out.

The pain was strong those couple of weeks as he worked through this process. He felt wronged, the world seemed unfair, he was angry, and he wanted to have back what he had lost. But he would never get it back and he needed to accept that, find some way to make peace with it… Understand that he wasn’t less because of it.

When he had shared these thoughts with Wooyoung, the younger had smiled wistfully.

“That reminds me of what I went through myself,” he had confessed.

“What do you mean?” San had asked.

“When I realized my parents didn’t really want me. The realization came after I had found a family in Hongjoong and Candle. I was so angry for having spent so many years trying and trying, only to…” He had trailed off with a sigh. “It’s important to know that we are us, always… That you are you, can be whoever you want to be—with or without the things you might have missed or lost. You’re already whole. It still might be hard to see, but you don’t have to have your past define your future anymore. You’re free.”

San had kept quiet after that.

He thought of it at night, though, trying to understand it.

He dreamt of Wooyoung that night for the first time. Usually there were shadows or distorted voices that he knew were meant to represent Wooyoung, but they were always blurred out as if he was too scared to fully allow him in. That night he wasn’t scared and so he dreamt of Wooyoung.

He woke up feeling peculiar. Not exactly wonderful and quiet, but so very close to it.

After the second annual friend hang out at Wooyoung and Hongjoong’s flat, Wooyoung walked San home. Under the stars they talked and talked and talked as if there were no boundaries. 

(In that memory, San liked to believe that there weren’t.)

San allowed Wooyoung into his flat for the first time, it felt very intimate but appropriate too. It wasn’t surprising to him that they ended up kissing on his bed, passionately and full of love. San understood then, those people that had allowed love into their lives after the war, it was very powerful. He could feel his entire self being cherished by Wooyoung that night, grateful tears rolling down his cheeks as Wooyoung told him over and over again that he loved him, that he was in love with him.

San said it back, fighting against his still triggering fear of emotional vulnerability because just as much as San deserved to hear that, Wooyoung did too.

It was dawning when they fell asleep, and it was midday when San woke up from a wonderful and quiet dream. 

Wooyoung had held his promise.

**Author's Note:**

> lmk what you think  
> love you all <3
> 
> you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/hhhjoong)!


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